Direct Evidence
by pgrabia
Summary: A nightmare provides illumination for House as he moves forward with a new life with a new relationship. Sequel to "Beyond a Reasonable Doubt". Warning: H/W slash. Rated M sexuality and themes of child abuse . Pt.2 of "The Law of House" series.


**Direct Evidence**

Disclaimer: House M.D., its characters, locations and storyline are the property of David Shore, Bad Hat Harry Productions and the Fox Television Network. All Rights Reserved.

A/N: I've received several reviews requesting that I continue where I left off with Beyond a Reasonable Doubt. While I didn't plan on writing a series, I have decided to try my hand at it again and see what the response is before I decide whether or not to make this an actual series of short stories. So please remember to review and tell me what you think!

**Warning**: H/W slash.

**Rated M** for language, child abuse and sexuality.

_Greg looked up at Tommy as the blond five year old ran up to him proudly carrying his new birthday present: a brand new dump truck with an operational bucket that actually tipped up and emptied its load by the moving of a small lever. It was painted bright yellow with large black tires. It was beautiful, the same truck Greg had seen in the store window and had pointed out to his mother as the only thing he wanted for his birthday two months before._

_Instead of the truck the shy boy with medium chestnut colored hair and giant blue eyes had dreamt about, he received a toy military rifle with bonus silver-painted, blunt-ended bayonet. His dad told him that it was the best one money could buy, which, for a Marine flyboy, was an extravagant gift on his pay. Greg had pretended that it was the toy of his dreams, at least until his father had left the house the next morning for training exercises. Once Dad was gone, he had taken the rifle out to the backyard of their base married men's accommodations and broke the silver bayonet off in one well placed stomp; using it, Greg used the bayonet piece to dig the hole behind the shed where he buried the accursed pieces of plastic, hoping that no one would ever notice._

_His father had noticed. Three days after the burial Greg was reading quietly in his bedroom where he couldn't get in the way while his mother prepared dinner and provoke anyone's anger. He heard the back door slam, harder than usual, and heavy, determined footsteps approach his room. The six-year-old rose quickly to his feet, faced the door and retreated as far away from it as he could before he hit the wall behind him. He stood straight and tall, his hands straight at his sides, at attention. He knew the drill. His brilliant blue eyes, so soft and soulful, stared straight ahead at some infinite point in space and time and set his jaw._

_The bedroom door opened suddenly with such force that it slammed into the wall behind it, overwhelming the protective door stop and leaving a round, door knob-sized ding in the cheap plaster. All Greg wanted to do was run and hide. He knew that the discipline his father would mete out for this infraction would be brutal. His six-year-old body trembled but he couldn't show fear. Fear was for sissies and little girls. Lt. John House's son was going to grow up to be a man's man, hard as steel, even if it meant beating him into it. Greg knew such beatings all too well._

_Greg's father held up the mangled, dirt-encrusted toy rifle as he glared down with eyes the color of ice cold steel at his little boy. The child could hear his mother in the hallway, just out of sight, murmuring unintelligibly to his father, but the Marine didn't pay any attention to her._

_"What is this?" Dad yelled at him. _

_"M-my rifle, Sir!" Greg told him, his eyes tearing up. No, No! The child thought desperately. I cannot cry!_

_"What did you do with it?" Dad demanded._

_For the briefest moment, Greg thought about lying, but he immediately dismissed any such insanity. His father knew the truth and lying would only make the punishment he faced just that much more…severe._

_"I b-buried i-it, S-sir!" Greg answered, his voice quavering. The mist became tears in his eyes. The six-year-old tried to blink them away but they wouldn't go. His heart beat so fast and so hard in his chest that it hurt._

_"Why?" John House bellowed, holding the toy up as if he were about to beat his son over the head with it._

_Now the tears fell down his otherwise impassive face. Greg knew that he had no answer that would ever make his dad happy, that would ever turn away the discipline._

_"I asked you a question, boy!" his father yelled again. "Do you think money grows on trees?"_

_"N-no, Sir!"_

_"How ungrateful a piece of shit are you, Boy?"_

_Greg fought the sudden rush of anger that always accompanied the terror he felt just before the hammer fell. _

_"V-Very, Sir!" the six-year-old answered, shaking almost uncontrollably now._

_"What was that?" Dad yelled again; forcing the boy degrade himself over and over again was John House's favorite pastime. _

_With the tears now came the inevitable sobs. "I'm v-very ungrateful, Sir!"_

_"Are you crying like a baby, Boy? Are you?" John House was screaming now, his face as red as a beet, spittle flying from his mouth. "Let's just see what happens to crying ungrateful sissies!"_

_The natural instinct to duck had been long driven out of the six-year-old so when his dad raised the rifle and then sent it crashing into the side of Greg's face like a baseball bat he didn't flinch beforehand. The impact sent the boy to the floor. Pain seared through Greg's head, temporarily blinding him. He reached up to where the rifle had made contact and felt sticky moisture. He pulled his hand back to see the blood, not that it was the first time he had ever seen it, and so much of it._

_"You want to bury things?" Dad continued to rant. "O.K. We'll bury things!"_

_Greg felt himself being lifted off of the floor by the scruff of his neck by strong, pain-inducing hands, hands taught how to kill. He was half-pushed, half-drug out to the backyard behind the shed and thrown violently down with all of his father's force into the upturned earth._

_"Dig!" John House ordered, standing over the boy._

_Greg looked around him but there was nothing to use to dig with._

_"W-with what-t, S-Sir?"_

_His dad bent down until his face was only inches from the young boy's and then yelled, "With your fucking hands, you little piece of shit!"_

_Greg didn't even consider arguing. Using just his fingers and hands he tore away at the sod, breaking his fingernails, tearing at his flesh. He dug and dug, scooping the rocky earth away, splinters and small rocks nicking and tearing at his flesh until it bled and became encrusted with the blood-cake that formed. The hole kept getting bigger and deeper and the six-year-old was crying from the pain of his mangled hands but his father wouldn't let him stop. An hour passed, and then two, without a moment of rest for the child. When exhaustion began to take over and Greg began to slow down his father would punch him in the head with his fist. A couple of times the blows dazed him and he would nearly pass out. When that happened, his father would turn on the ice-cold water of the garden hose and soak him with it to wake him up and get him digging again. This torture lasted until it was nearly dark._

_The hole that Greg dug was approximately five feet long, two feet wide, and eighteen to twenty inches deep._

_"S-Sir," Greg croaked as he half-sat, half-laid on the ground next to the hole, too exhausted to move and too dehydrated to think straight. "W-what are w-we going to bury?"_

_He looked up in the twilight to see the coldest, most ruthless smile he had ever seen._

_"You," Dad said._

_Before the boy had the chance to so much as scream his Marine Corps father picked him up and laid him on his back in the hole. Primal fear, the instinct for self-preservation kicked in and Greg began to kick and scream, cry, flail and beg, but none of it did anything to prevent his father from burying him in the cold, dark earth until every inch of his body was covered save for a circle with a diameter of about three- to four inches where his nose and mouth had been left exposed to allow for him to breathe. His ears were covered—even his eyes. The dirt was so heavy that Greg could barely move his ribcage enough to breathe. He was blind, deaf, paralyzed and cold. _

_Evening fell. His father left him there like that for the night. For the first hour Greg screamed and cried in terror, that is, until his voice gave out. He had long since lost control of both his bladder and bowels. He could feel the movement of insects and bugs in the dirt around his skin. It was cold, so very cold. Panic destroyed any sense of time passage and orientation._

_It began to rain, softly at first, but then harder. Water dripped into his nostrils, poured into his mouth. He could barely keep up swallowing quickly enough to give him the opportunity to breathe. He was drowning. He was drowning and going to die in his very own grave that he dug for himself…!_

House woke with a start, screaming and flailing and coughing. His entire body was drenched with sweat and his heart raced dangerously for a fifty year old man. He was nearly hyperventilating, the panic still overwhelming him. At first he had no idea when and where he was and then he heard the sound of an old movie on the TV and saw the dim light given off by the lamp on the table beside him. He was lying on the sofa, and he was in the condo that he shared with Wilson….

Wilson. House realized that he had fallen asleep on the sofa watching TV with his best friend. The oncologist had been curled up beside him sleeping contentedly in his arms. He now sat next to him, blinking sleepily, a concerned frown on his face. He was stroking the older man's hair, his bearded face and was murmuring something gentle and soothing.

The diagnostician began to calm down. His heart rate returned to a safer level and his breathing became slower and deeper. He was alright. He wasn't buried alive. He wasn't drowning in the rain. He was safe on the sofa, curled up with the person he loved, safe and warm.

He began to remember what he had been doing before he fell asleep. He'd come home from seeing Nolan earlier that afternoon. He'd told James that he was in love with him. He'd kissed him, and had enjoyed it. They'd had dinner and talked about the new phase of their relationship that began that night while cuddling on the couch in front of the TV. Neither one of them had paid much attention to what was on. They were too intent on the newness of each other, allowing themselves to just experience the nearness of the other in ways they had never known before. It hadn't been overtly sexual, just holding each other, caressing, talking, and getting comfortable to the feeling of contact between each other's bodies. They had kissed, joked about how they were suddenly both virgins again when it came to being man with man. There had been some timidity, some awkwardness, but they took comfort in the fact that they would be facing this monumental change together.

House had feared that he would be unable to relax with the physicality of their relationship but was amazed with how comfortable he felt by being held by a man. House had discovered the long buried arousal and desire for Wilson that he had never allowed himself to even fleetingly consider before. Both of them had become at ease with each other enough to fall asleep in each other's arms.

Then the nightmare had come. The long repressed memory suddenly had emerged from the darkest shadows of House's psyche and for the life of him, he couldn't understand why. Why, when things seemed to finally be making sense, when he was finally allowing himself to give and feel with the love of his life, was it coming out now?

"Hey," Wilson whispered, caressing House's face lovingly. "Shh. It's okay. It was just a dream. It's alright, Greg. I'm here, you're not alone. Do you want to talk about it?"

House shook his head. It was bad enough that he'd had to live it. The last thing he wanted to do was have to _relive_ it again and again forty-five years later.

"No," he murmured, "I want you to help me forget it."

Wilson smiled knowingly, his eyes shining in excitement. Being careful not to hurt his partner's leg, he slid his bare chest up against the older man's like a caress and put his mouth on House's, kissing him passionately; House reciprocated, probing with his tongue into the younger man's mouth, wrapping it around his. He felt himself harden, felt his partner harden against him. It drove him wild, his breathing quickening. He found the button to Wilson's trousers and fumbled with it, carefully lowered the zipper. His partner helped him remove the pants and under shorts, their passion causing them to behave frenzied. Wilson returned the favor and they entangled each other's nude bodies. Wilson's hand moved to House's genitals and began to pleasure him.

The diagnostician gasped, "Oh god, James!"

Wilson's breath roared loudly in his ears. "I love you, Greg. Oh god, I _need_ you!"

The oncologist went down on him. House hung his head back, his eyes glazing over, his eyelids hooded, a look of rapture on his face. As the tension built, he arched his back and moaned in pleasure, unable to control his verbal responses. Never had he experienced anything quite like it before. In the back of his mind he knew it was because he loved the one he was with more than any other person in his entire life and that made the difference. When he came he found himself giggling and crying all at once. He had never cried before, not with Stacy, not with anyone and yet with Wilson the catharsis was so much more than physical.

Wilson returned to entwine himself with his lover, concerned. "W-what's wrong? Greg, talk to me."

"_Nothing_." House began to laugh, gently brushing aside a stray strand of hair off of the younger man's forehead. "I…I love you!"

Relief flooded Wilson's handsome face. Gratefully House pleasured the man he loved and afterwards they clung to each other, sleeping lightly, waking briefly to kiss the other, to whisper something loving and reassuring.

"Let's go to bed," Wilson said sleepily.

House figured that was an excellent idea. Together they walked hand in hand past what was and would never again be his bedroom to what used to be Wilson's alone. They climbed into the bed and held each other under the warmth of the covers.

"You know what's great about this?" House murmured just before he fell asleep.

"There's something more?" Wilson replied, his head on the older man's chest.

House chuckled softly. "No whining for pillow talk."

The oncologist laughed, and they both soon fell back to sleep.

House stared through the glass at his young patient sleeping in the hospital room with his strikingly blue eyes. The five year old boy named Kenny had been transferred from a hospital just outside of Atlantic City when doctors there couldn't determine what his wide range of symptoms had in common. He had been at death's door and had crashed once while under House's team's care. He came in with a spiking fever, hallucinations, drowsiness, headache, blurred vision, low B.P., confusion, fainting spells, anxiety, paleness, bradycardia, nausea and vomiting, upper abdominal pain on his left side, watery, bloody diarrhea and weakness. His team had gone through the gambit of theories as to what it could be: migraine headache, aseptic meningitis, encephalitis, E. coli infection, gastritis, drug overdose, intussusception, gastroenteritis, intestinal obstruction, food poisoning and a ruptured spleen (because of the presence of contusions and bruising all over the abdomen, supposedly from falling forward onto the handlebars of his bike).

It turned out to be a combination, not unusual. The boy had incurred a small rupture of his spleen which had accounted for the left-sided abdominal pain and rigidity and low blood pressure which had caused the symptoms of bradycardia, confusion, blurred vision and fainting spells. That had been repaired surgically without having to perform a splenectomy. The second problem was explained after the child's stomach contents were examined: he had an infection caused by _Clostridium perfingens_, a bacteria found in soil contaminated with animal feces. It was for this reason that House stood outside the boy's ICU room, watching him sleep while a respirator helped his little body to breathe. Kenny would survive, but to what he would have to go back to was the question. The diagnostician was determined to influence the answer.

House quietly entered the room and slid the door shut silently. He moved to the side of the boy's bed and sat in the chair that had been pulled up close. After taking a quick look around to be certain he wasn't being watched, he reached over and gently brushed a few strands of hair out of the boy's sleeping eyes and then cupped his cheek. Kenny looked angelic in spite of the intrusive tube that stuck out of his mouth and was attached to modern technology. Most of those who knew the irascible doctor believed him to be a child-hater; that just wasn't so. He didn't hate children, he feared for them, and that fear reminded him of the reasons why he feared, things that came too close for comfort. Thus he avoided children to avoid the fear.

It had been his nightmare the night before that had answered the question as to what the second cause of the boy's symptoms was.

Gently gripping the five-year-old's shoulder, House shook him softly. The little boy's green eyes opened slowly and he stared up at the doctor sleepily.

"Hi," House said quietly. "I'm Dr. House. My team and I have been trying to make you better, and you're going to be okay. Don't try to talk. There's a nasty tube down your throat to help you breathe and I can't take it out yet."

Kenny nodded slightly, his eyes staring at him with a listlessness that came from being critically ill.

"I think I know what happened to you, Kenny," the diagnostician said. "But I need to know for sure. I'm going to ask you a few questions. Don't try to answer them using your voice, okay? If the answer is yes, nod your head up and down, and if it's no, shake your head from side to side, okay? Move your head just a little so it doesn't hurt your throat. Do you understand?"

A small nod was the answer. House allowed himself a small smile.

"Good," he told the boy. "Kenny, did you hurt yourself on your bike?"

Kenny shook his head no.

_Didn't think so_, House thought grimly. "Did somebody else hurt your tummy?"

A nod.

"Was it Daddy?"

A shake.

"Mommy?"

A nod. The heart monitor showed a slight increase in the child's heart rate, but nothing significantly so. House felt safe to move on.

"Did Mommy punch you in the tummy?"

Kenny nodded. His eyes looked misty. House hated having to do this to the boy. He took Kenny's hand in his. It was so tiny.

"Kenny, do you feel like eating stuff that people don't usually eat?" House asked. "Stuff like paper or sand or dirt?"

There was a brief pause before the five-year-old nodded.

_Pica_, House acknowledged silently. Among institutionalized populations of children the prevalence of Pica, the persistent eating of non-nutritive substances like paper, dirt and paint, was somewhere between four to twenty-six percent; the prevalence among the non-institutionalized child population was much more difficult to estimate. It was considered to be a mental disorder rather than physical but the actual cause was up for debate. Pica was dangerous when the eating of the non-nutritive substances interfered with the eating and digestion of nutritive foods, threatened the integrity of the gastrointestinal tract or the substances eaten like paint or dirt contaminated with animal feces carried with them toxic or infectious agents that cause disease and other complications.1 The good news was behavioral therapy was quite effective at treating Pica.

"Right before you became sick, did you eat dirt or sand?"

Kenny nodded.

"Did you eat sand from your sand box?" House asked, hoping to narrow down the actual substance consumed.

A shake.

"Was it dirt, say, from your mom's garden or flower bed?"

A nod. House sighed, nodding. It made sense—many a gardener swore by the adding of natural fertilizers like steer, sheep or fowl manure to the soil in their gardens to boost growth and fruitfulness. Most commercially prepared manure products were sterilized before being packaged and sold, but not all.

"Did you eat a lot?"

The boy shook his head no. House frowned in surprise. The contents of the boy's stomach, which had been pumped after he was brought into hospital as a preventative treatment for possible poisoning, had contained a sizable amount of soil, more than a couple of mouthfuls.

"You had lots in your stomach," House told him gently, not wanting to frighten the child but to let him know that the doctor knew about the dirt so lying about it was purposeless. "Are you sure you didn't eat lots?"

The boy shook his head again, but House figured the boy was still telling him that he hadn't eaten a lot. That was unexpected and House had to think about that for a minute or two. As he did, he stared at Kenny's face, looking for any indication that he was lying. It was then that House noticed it—the small cuts on and the slight purpling of the boy's lips. At a quick glance those signs looked like chapping and mild cyanosis, but if one looked more closely, as the diagnostician was now doing, it was clear to see that it was not chapping and the purplish color was mottling, a kind of bruising, not the blueness associated with a lack of oxygen in the blood and tissues.

The diagnostician closed his eyes for a moment, disgust and anger filling him. Damn that Nolan! On the psychiatrist's insistence House had been opening himself up to situations and emotions he never would have before rehab. Some of those emotions totally sucked shit. He kept his tone of voice mild and friendly. "Did someone force you to eat a lot of dirt?"

Kenny nodded. A couple of tears fell from his eyes and his heart rate accelerated considerably. House squeezed the boy's hand gently and brushed the tears off of his cheeks in an effort to calm him and slow his heart rate again. It only worked minimally.

"Kenny," House asked him. "Did your mommy catch you eating a little bit of dirt?"

He nodded yes.

"Did she get angry?"

Yes.

House took a deep breath, keeping a closer eye on the heart monitor now. Did he continue to question the five-year-old and risk elevating his heart-rate even higher, or drop it for now? He decided to proceed cautiously. He only had a couple more questions left and he wanted to know the answers sooner rather than later, for the boy's sake.

"Kenny," the diagnostician told the child softly, "I know this is scary to talk about. I know you feel confused and sad—and it's okay. I need you to try to relax, okay? I only have two more questions to ask and then you can go back to sleep."

The five-year-old didn't move, but House still held his gaze. It was good enough.

"Did mommy get angry and then force you to eat more dirt because she was angry?"

The child nodded after a moment of hesitation. House nodded without satisfaction, and petted the boy's hair reassuringly. The heart monitor showed no appreciable change. _Good_.

"Here's my last question," the diagnostician assured him. "Did she shove it in your mouth and make you swallow?"

There was no nod or shake of the head but Kenny began to cry, and by doing so began to choke on the air tube in his throat. House began to rub the child's back soothingly, trying to calm him and stop the choking; Kenny's O₂ saturation was too low to remove the tube.

"Shh," House said gently. "Shh. It's alright. It's alright. I won't ask any more questions, okay? You did a very good job, Kenny. I've very proud of you…you've been very brave. I know…I know it hurts but it's going to be okay. Kenny, now that I know what happened, I won't let it happen again. Do you understand? I won't let your mommy or anyone else hurt you like that again." Even though House knew how deeply he was committing himself when he said the following, he said it anyway. "_I promise_."

The five-year-old's sobs began to subside and with them so did the choking and panic. His large green eyes looked up trustingly into the diagnostician's. House smiled genuinely at him, brushing away the child's tears away.

He heard a female clearing her voice from the direction of the door. House looked up suddenly to see Thirteen standing there, looking a little sheepish. House was annoyed that she hadn't announced herself before entering the room and listening in on him. He pulled his hand back from Kenny's face but remained holding the child's hand because he had a vice-grip on the diagnostician's thumb.

House looked back to Kenny and winked. "I've got to talk to Dr. Hadley. I want you to close your eyes and go to sleep now, okay?"

Kenny nodded obediently and shut his eyes. He loosened his grip and House gently let go of the tiny hand, laying it to rest at the boy's side; the older doctor rose slowly with his cane and met Thirteen at the door. He nodded out of the room, indicating he wanted to speak to her outside. He led the way and she followed.

"Walk with me," he told her, limping out of ICU and towards the elevator. She matched his pace at his side.

"Knocking would be nice," House told her bitingly, not looking at her.

"Sorry," she told him. "I didn't want to disturb you."

"So you decided to listen in, instead," her boss responded with a frown. "How much did you hear?"

Thirteen shrugged. "Pretty much all of it." She paused a beat. "You shouldn't have promised him that."

House looked sideways at her. She was probably right, but he was curious to know why she thought so. "Why not?"

"Because you can't guarantee you will be able to keep your promise," Thirteen told him bluntly. "You can report to CPS that you suspect that Kenny is being abused, and if they have the manpower, they'll investigate. If they don't, he'll end up right back at home. Even if an investigation is carried out and your accusation is backed up, all that will happen is Kenny will end up part of the system until or unless his mother fights the charges and wins or her family requests and obtains custody of him. Whether he's with his mom or the system, his chances of being abused again are sickeningly high. Once Kenny leaves the hospital, his fate is out of your hands."

They reached the elevator. House punched the down button and turned to face the woman.

"Then I suppose I'll have to keep him in the hospital until I can make certain I _can_ keep my promise."

Thirteen looked at him dubiously. "I don't know how you intend to do that," she told him. "In fact, I don't want to know. I just hope you don't let that little boy down like everybody else in his life has."

The elevator arrived and they waited for it to empty before entering. Once the door was closed they resumed their conversation.

"I won't," House told her with certainty.

"Now I really don't want to know what you're scheming." Thirteen told him with a shake of her head. "You've had abused kids as patients before and you never treated them the way I just watched you treat Kenny. Why is he so special? Why do you care about what's going to happen to him when he's discharged?"

The last thing House wanted to do just then was to give her the honest answer. Instead he answered with a sneer, "I like little fair-eyed, blond haired boys; I have a soft-spot for Aryans. Go spread that on the hospital grapevine."

Thirteen sighed and decided to drop the subject.

After a couple of seconds of silence, House asked. "So why did you really seek me out in ICU?" He knew, of course, but he planned on playing it cool. You don't raise before a bet is placed.

"I was curious if you found out who sent you the chocolates last Friday," She answered, smiling. "By the way, I retrieved them from the garbage and plan on giving them to Kenny when he's eating solid foods again."

"Good idea," House said approvingly. The elevator came to a stop and the doctors disembarked, heading in the direction of the diagnostician's office. "And yes, I found out."

He noticed out of the corner of his eye that Thirteen was watching him expectantly, pretending like she didn't know. Apparently she liked playing games, too.

"So?" she asked, trying to sound casual. "Who was it?"

House resisted the urge to smirk and thus give himself away. "I have it on good authority it was that new Pedes nurse, the blonde with the large--."

"House!" Thirteen cut him off, feigning offence.

"I was going to say hands," he told her straight-faced, entering his office and heading to his desk to sit down. "Why, what did you think I was going to say? Thirteen, I'm _shocked_!"

"I don't think anyone or anything is capable of shocking you," she told him sarcastically. She moved up to stand next to his desk but didn't sit in the chair at hand. "Are you certain it was _her_?" she pressed.

Obviously Thirteen hadn't spoken to Wilson yet that morning so hadn't been informed of what had occurred between the oncologist and him the night before; Good, he thought, _very good_.

House picked up his favorite fuzzy ball from its stand on the top of his desk and began to bounce it. "I'm positive. Wilson told me, said he saw her. You're not jealous, are you? She _is_ pretty sexy."

"She is," Thirteen agreed, sounding disappointed. "I was just expecting it to have been from someone…else. Never mind," she said quickly.

"Don't worry," House said to her, smirking. "She's not my type. She's all _yours_."

Thirteen ignored the verbal elbow to her ribs. "What exactly _is_ your type, House?"

He reclined back in his desk chair and began to throw the ball up towards the ceiling instead. "I have a liking for tall brunettes, myself. Why? Do you know of any you want to set me up with?"

Just then the door to his office opened and Wilson stuck his head inside as he knocked. House caught the ball and sat up expectantly.

"Oh," the oncologist said when he saw that Thirteen was there. "Sorry. I'll come back--."

"No need," she told Wilson before he could back out. "I was just leaving." She headed out of the door as Wilson stepped in. House caught the look they exchanged as they passed.

Once Thirteen was gone, Wilson asked, "Does she know about--?"

"Not from me," House replied. "I thought I'd let you fill her in on the gossip over tea."

"Funny," Wilson retorted drily.

"I thought so," the diagnostician told his lover, putting the ball back on its stand. He rose from his chair and limped around the desk to face the younger man. After taking a quick look for onlookers, House leaned over and kissed Wilson, lingering a moment. Despite his surprised expression, the younger man smiled.

"Ready for lunch?" House asked him.

"That's why I'm here," Wilson told him, following him out of the office. "The special at the cafeteria today is braised beef ribs."

House looked sideways at the oncologist deviously. "Actually, I'm more in the mood for a hot dog, myself."

1 From the current edition of The Handbook of Clinical Child Psychology.


End file.
